You and your team will be visiting your website constantly. Whether it’s for updates, to check content changes, or just to admire the design, your team’s IP addresses are being counted as page hits to Google Analytics. Learning how to filter IPs in Google Analytics properly is a great way to reveal the actual metrics of your site’s views.
1. Create a New View
It’s important that any filters you add to Google Analytics be kept in it’s own View. This allows you to see the original raw data, organize different filters to view subsets, and test new filters to see if they break everything while leaving your data in tact.
Creating a new View is simple. Login to Google Analytics, navigate to the Admin screen, and click the ‘All Website Data’ dropdown in the right-most column (the View column). Click ‘Create new view’ to get started.
On the View page simply name your View in a way that describes the filters and click ‘Create View’.
You can now select the new View from the View column dropdown on the Admin screen below All Website Data.
2. Add New Filter to the New View
From the Admin screen, select your new View and click the Filters menu item below it.
On the Filters page, click ‘+ New Filter’ and you can begin to add your first IP filter.
In the above example, notice I’ve chosen a specific set of options.
- Create New Filter (you can reuse old filters if you have them)
- Filter Name (a filter should be conveniently named)
- Filter Type: Predefined (Google has IP address exclusions as a predefined option)
- Filter Type: Exclude (you want to exclude any views from this filter)
- Filter Type: traffic from the IP addresses (you want the view to filter IP’s)
- Filter Type: that are equal to (you know the IP addresses)
- IP address (fill in the IP addresses separated by commas)
Protip: Include a set of IP’s only specific to one location (or person) so you can add and remove filters without scrolling through tons of IP’s in that tiny box. Ex: James’ Home IP.
Save the Filter and the IP filter will begin.
Naturally there are other advanced options to filter bulk IP’s, but this the basic way to filter known IP addresses.
3. Changing the View
You can now switch between All Web Site Data and your new View by clicking the dropdown in the top right of your site.
Any Views you create in the future will be accessible here as well.
The Drawback
Now that you know how to filter IPs in Google Analytics, you should be aware of a technicality. IP filters only work on new data. The new filter will only apply to data starting on the day you created it, which can be annoying because there is no way to filter the old data once it’s saved. Better late then never!
Interested in Google Analytics? Check out our Beginners Guide to Google Analytics series to get a glimpse into the best visitor tracking system on the market.
